{"title":"Jeffrey J Kripal","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the groundbreaking work of Jeffrey J. Kripal, delving into the paranormal, mysticism, and the future of consciousness. Perfect for readers intrigued by alternative spiritualities and the edges of human experience.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"secret-body-erotic-and-esoteric-currents-in-the-history-of-religions-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9780226126821","title":"Secret Body  Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions","description":"Over the course of his twenty-five-year career, Jeffrey J. Kripal's study of religion has had two major areas of focus: the erotic expression of mystical experience and the rise of the paranormal in American culture. This book brings these two halves together in surprising ways through a blend of memoir, manifesto, and anthology, drawing new connections between these two realms of human experience and revealing Kripal's body of work to be a dynamic whole that has the potential to renew and reshape the study of religion. Kripal tells his story, biographically, historically and politically contextualizing each of the six books of his Chicago corpus, from Kali's Child to Mutants and Mystics, all the while answering his censors and critics and exploring new implications of his thought. In the process, he begins to sketch out a speculative \"new comparativism\" in twenty theses. The result is a new vision for the study of religion, one that takes in the best of the past, engages with outside critiques from the sciences and the humanities, and begins to blaze a new positive path forward. 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The Flip shows us what happens when we realise that consciousness is fundamental to the cosmos and not some random evolutionary accident or surface cognitive illusion; that everything is alive, connected, and 'one'. We meet the people who have made this visionary, intuitive leap towards new forms of knowledge: Mark Twain's prophetic dreams, Marie Curie's séances, Einstein's cosmically attuned mind. But these forms of knowledge are not archaic; indeed, they are essential in a universe that has evolved specifically to be understandable by the consciousnesses we inhabit.  The Flip peels back the layers of our beliefs about the world to reveal a visionary, new way of understanding ourselves and everything around us, with huge repercussions for how we live our lives. After all, once we have flipped, we understand that the cosmos is not just human. 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If we acknowledged and celebrated the undercurrent of the fantastic within our humanistic disciplines, entirely new cultural worlds and meanings would become possible. That is Jeffrey J. Kripal’s vision for the future—to revive the suppressed dimension of the superhumanities, which consists of rare but real altered states of knowledge that have driven the creative processes of many of our most revered authors, artists, and activists. In Kripal’s telling, the history of the humanities is filled with precognitive dreams, evolving superhumans, and doubled selves. The basic idea of the superhuman, for Kripal, is at the core of who and what the human species has tried to become over millennia and around the planet.     After diagnosing the basic malaise of the humanities—that the truth must be depressing—Kripal shows how it can all be done differently. He argues that we have to decolonize reality itself if we are going to take human diversity seriously. Toward this pluralist end, he engages psychoanalytic, Black critical, feminist, postcolonial, queer, and ecocritical theory. He works through objections to the superhumanities while also recognizing the new realities represented by the contemporary sciences. In doing so, he tries to move beyond naysaying practices of critique toward a future that can embrace those critiques within a more holistic view—a view that recognizes the human being as both a social-political animal as well as an evolved cosmic species that understands and experiences itself as something super.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49755250327825,"sku":"NGR9780226820248","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51799694999825,"sku":"CIN0226820246VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52397713490193,"sku":"GOR013235356","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53188067295505,"sku":"CIN0226820246G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226820246.jpg?v=1750812742"},{"product_id":"secret-body-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9780226679082","title":"Secret Body","description":"Over the course of his twenty-five-year career, Jeffrey J. 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The result is a new vision for the study of religion, one that takes in the best of the past, engages with outside critiques from the sciences and the humanities, and begins to blaze a new positive path forward. A major work decades in the making, Secret Body will become a landmark in the study of religion.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49775250407697,"sku":"GOR012683120","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/022667908X.jpg?v=1750843678"},{"product_id":"kali-s-child-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9780226453767","title":"Kali's Child","description":"The 19th-century Bengali mystic Ramakrishna played a major role in the development of Hinduism and is regarded as a modern saint. Yet he remains an enigma to followers unable to reconcile his saintly status with his eroticized language and actions. In this work, Jeffrey J. Kripal attempts to untangle the paradox. He demonstrates that Ramakrishna's famous mystical experiences were driven by erotic energies that he neither fully accepted nor understood; the key to understanding him, Kripal argues, lies in Tantra and its ritual, symbolic and doctrinal equation of the mystical and the erotic. Moving through Ramakrishna's world both chronologically and conceptually, this book employs two complementary interpretive strategies: a nuanced phenomenological reinterpretation of original Bengali texts and a non-reductive psychoanalytic reading of Ramakrishna's mystical eroticism. Kripal shows how the heterosexual structure of Tantric symbolism, the abusive way its rituals were often forced upon the saint, and Ramakrishna's own homosexual desires all came together to produce in him profound feelings of shame, disgust and fear. Kripal establishes that the homosexuality of this great, if unwilling, Tantric mystic is linked inextricably to virtually every aspect of his life and teachings.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49781861089553,"sku":"CIN0226453766G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226453766.jpg?v=1751101764"},{"product_id":"comparing-religions-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9781118774878","title":"Comparing Religions","description":"Comparing Religions  is a next-generation textbook which expertly guides, inspires, and challenges those who wish to think seriously about religious pluralism in the modern world. A unique book teaching the art and practice of comparing religions  Draws on a wide range of religious traditions to demonstrate the complexity and power of comparative practices  Provides both a history and understanding of comparative practice and a series of thematic chapters showing how responsible practice is done  A three part structure provides readers with a map and effective process through which to grasp this challenging but fascinating approach  The author is a leading academic, writer, and exponent of comparative practice  Contains numerous learning features, including chapter outlines, summaries, toolkits, discussion questions, a glossary, and many images  Supported by a companion website (available on publication) at  www.wiley.com\/go\/kripal , which includes information on individual religious traditions, links of other sites, an interview with the author, learning features, and much more","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50146045100305,"sku":"CIN1118774876A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1118774876.jpg?v=1751112375"},{"product_id":"authors-of-the-impossible-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9780226453866","title":"Authors of the Impossible","description":"Most scholars dismiss research into the paranormal as pseudoscience, a frivolous pursuit for the paranoid or gullible. Even historians of religion, whose work naturally attends to events beyond the realm of empirical science, have shown scant interest in the subject. But the history of psychical phenomena, Jeffrey J. Kripal contends, is an untapped source of insight into the sacred, and by tracing that history through the last two centuries of Western thought we can see its potential centrality to the critical study of religion. The cultural history of telepathy, teleportation, and UFOs; a ghostly love story; the occult dimensions of science fiction; Cold War psychic espionage; galactic colonialism; and, the intimate relationship between consciousness and culture all come together in \"Authors of the Impossible\", a dazzling and profound look at how the paranormal bridges the sacred and the scientific.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345997205777,"sku":"CIN0226453863G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226453863.jpg?v=1751290764"},{"product_id":"how-to-think-impossibly-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9780226833682","title":"How to Think Impossibly","description":"A mind-bending invitation to experience the impossible as fundamentally human.     From precognitive dreams and telepathic visions to near-death experiences, UFO encounters, and beyond, so-called impossible phenomena are not supposed to happen. But they do happen—all the time. Jeffrey J. Kripal asserts that the impossible is a function not of reality but of our everchanging assumptions about what is real. How to Think Impossibly invites us to think about these fantastic (yet commonplace) experiences as an essential part of being human, expressive of a deeply shared reality that is neither mental nor material but gives rise to both. Thinking with specific individuals and their extraordinary experiences in vulnerable, open, and often humorous ways, Kripal interweaves humanistic and scientific inquiry to foster an awareness that the fantastic is real, the supernatural is super natural, and the impossible is possible.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50477261193489,"sku":"NGR9780226833682","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51000307745041,"sku":"NIN9780226833682","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51322591707409,"sku":"CIN0226833682G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51534899052817,"sku":"GOR014320025","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51846378848529,"sku":"GOR014424926","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226833682.jpg?v=1750974184"},{"product_id":"mutants-and-mystics-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9780226271484","title":"Mutants and Mystics","description":"In many ways, twentieth-century America was the land of superheroes and science fiction. From Superman and Batman to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, these pop-culture juggernauts, with their \"powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men,\" thrilled readers and audiences - and simultaneously embodied a host of our dreams and fears about modern life and the onrushing future. But that's just scratching the surface, says Jeffrey J. Kripal. In Mutants and Mystics, Kripal offers a brilliantly insightful account of how comic book heroes have helped their creators and fans alike explore and express a wealth of paranormal experiences ignored by mainstream science. Delving deeply into the work of major figures in the field - from Jack Kirby's cosmic superhero sagas and Philip K. Dick's futuristic head - trips to Alan Moore's sex magic and Whitley Strieber's communion with visitors - Kripal shows how creators turned to science fiction to convey the reality of the inexplicable and the paranormal they experienced in their lives. Expanded consciousness found its language in the metaphors of sci-fi-incredible powers, unprecedented mutations, time-loops, and vast intergalactic intelligences - and the deeper influences of mythology and religion that these in turn drew from; the wildly creative work that followed caught the imaginations of millions. A bravura performance, beautifully illustrated in full color throughout and brimming over with incredible personal stories, Mutants and Mystics is that rarest of things: a book that is guaranteed to broaden-and maybe even blow-your mind.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50481736646929,"sku":"GOR013800175","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51131299037457,"sku":"CIN022627148XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51832118182161,"sku":"NIN9780226271484","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52069209276689,"sku":"NGR9780226271484","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/022627148X.jpg?v=1751356910"},{"product_id":"comparing-religions-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9781119653936","title":"Comparing Religions","description":"Teaches students the art and practice of comparison in the globalizing world, fully updated to reflect recent scholarship and major developments in the field   Comparing Religions: The Study of Us that Changes Us is a wholly original, absorbing, and provocative reimagining of the comparative study of religion in the 21st century. The first textbook of its kind to foreground the extraordinary or “paranormal” aspects of religious experience, this innovative volume reviews the fundamental tenets of the world’s religions, discusses the benefits and problems of comparative inquiry, explores how the practice can impact a person's worldview and values, and much more.   Asserting that religions have always engaged in comparing one another, the authors provide insights into the history, trends, debates, and questions of explicit comparativism in the modern world. Easily accessible chapters examine the challenges of studying religion using a comparative approach rather than focusing on religious identity, inspiring students to think seriously about religious pluralism as they engage in comparative practice. Throughout the text, a wealth of diverse case studies and vivid illustrations are complemented by chapter outlines, summaries, toolkits, discussion questions, and other learning features. Substantially updated with new and revised material, the second edition of Comparing Religions:     Draws from both comparative work and critical theory to present a well-balanced introduction to contemporary practice Explains classic comparative themes, provides a historical outline of comparative practices, and offers key strategies for understanding, analyzing, and re-reading religion Draws on a wide range of religious traditions to illustrate the complexity and efficacy of comparative practice Embraces the transcendent nature of the religious experience in all its forms, including in popular culture, film, and television Contains a classroom-proven, three-part structure with easy-to-digest, thematically organized chapters Features a companion website with information on individual religious traditions, additional images, a glossary, discussion questions, and links to supplementary material   Comparing Religions: The Study of Us that Changes Us, Second Edition, is the perfect textbook for undergraduate students and faculty in comparative religion, the study of religion, and world religions, as well as a valuable resource for general readers interested in understanding this rewarding area.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50799340814609,"sku":"NGR9781119653936","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50987991367953,"sku":"CIN1119653932G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53511646839057,"sku":"CIN1119653932VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1119653932.jpg?v=1751016061"},{"product_id":"serpent-s-gift-book-jeffrey-j-kripal-9780226453811","title":"The Serpent's Gift","description":"“Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field.” With those words in Genesis, God condemns the serpent for tempting Adam and Eve, and the serpent has shouldered the blame ever since. 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My secret inner reaction to claims of anomalous phenomena is usually this: we haven't yet converged to even a half-decent ontology to explain the ordinary, why bother with the extra-ordinary? What this fascinating book does, however, is to disrupt our attempts to draw neat and smooth boundaries around what we consider real. The damned facts discussed in it spoil our elegant tentative models. Frankly, it's damn annoying. But books like this are also crucially important to keep us honest, insofar as our pursuit is for the truth, not merely intellectual reassurance.' - Bernardo Kastrup, author of Why Materialism is Baloney and More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth and Belief. 'Jack Hunter's Damned Facts, a collection of well-researched and closely argued essays into all things anomalous, presents some delightful, fascinating, and eye-brow raising evidence that there are more things in heaven and earth-and anywhere in between-than are dreamed of in practically anyone's philosophy. Taking their cue from the original anomalist, Charles Fort, who argued that mystery begins everywhere, Hunter and his contributors plunge headfirst into some deep waters and drag up to the surface enough oddities to satisfy even the most discerning taste in the unusual. It's my bet that Fort himself would have been damned proud.' - Gary Lachman, author of Revolutionaries of the Soul and The Secret Teachers of the Western World. Over the course of four ground-breaking books published between 1919-1932, Charles Fort gathered thousands of accounts of weird events and experiences that seemed to upset the established models of mainstream science and religion. In order to explore these events Fort developed the philosophy of Intermediatism, whereby all phenomena (from the most mundane to the most extraordinary), are understood to partake of a quasi-existence, neither real nor unreal. It is from this indeterminate vantage point that the chapters in this book begin their investigations. 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